Al Franken On Hillary Clinton - It's Time To Move On From Election Loss

By: Mackenzie Wright | June 3, 2017

Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric sat down with Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., on Thursday. The two discuss the 2016 election, Trump's decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Accord, and SNL.

A day before the interview, former Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton said at a conference that she was essentially robbed of the office in the 2016 campaign. Clinton continues to blame the media, the Russians, the FBI Director who investigated her email scandal and sexism in general for her loss. Franken thinks the party needs to stop rehashing Clinton's loss.

“I love Hillary. I think she is very prepared to be president of the United States … and I think she has a right to analyze what happened, but we do have to move on,” Franken explained. “We have to move on by proving we are the party that cares about a lot of the people who voted for Donald Trump.”

The Senator explains that Americans are not on board with Trump's policies, pointing to the low public support for Trump's health care proposal. He sees the Democratic party as a champion for the people.

“We are the ones fighting for average, working people,” he said.

Couric asked Franken about the big news of the moment, which was the President's announcement that the U.S. would be pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement. Trump claims the agreement will destroy American jobs and allow other countries to take advantage of the U.S.

"This agreement is less about the climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage over the United States," the president said in his announcement.

Franken called the president's reasoning 'stupid' and 'sad'. “Every other country in the world, except Syria and Nicaragua, has signed on. … This is an existential threat to us, to the rest of the world,” Franken said. “This is an enormous threat to the national security.”

Franken believes that new sources of renewable energy are the future, and that would do better to boost the American economy than fossil fuels. “Renewable energy is cheaper than coal,” he said. “Coal jobs ain’t coming back.”

Franken was a former writer for SNL when the show started in 1975 and went on to become a performer in 1980. Of course, Couric had to ask the former SNL alumni what he thinks about the recent political skits of the Trump administration on the late-night comedy show.

“I just went ‘holy mackerel,’” he said. “This is a classic and it was hilarious.”

Franken was hawking his new book, "Al Franken: Giant of the Senate," in which he puts his humorous writing background to good use. He finished the book when he thought Clinton was going to be elected president in the 2016 election, but that obviously didn't happen. In a previous interview, he admitted, "So then I had to figure out what to do with Trump. I decided I’d tie it into what was already there. My pep talk to the troops is actually about what happened between the 2004 presidential loss and 2008. I mean, [Karl] Rove was talking about a permanent GOP majority.”